Rivera Doesn't Need Saves to Prove He's the Greatest

by Bill Petti on Sep 20, 2011 10:05 AM EDT in Player Profiles

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Last night, the Yankees Mariano Rivera saved his 602nd game, breaking the career mark set by Trevor Hoffman. Articles and commentary are all aflutter noting that with this record Rivera has solidified his place as the greatest reliever of all time.

I think that's silly.

Even if Rivera had never saved a single game, one could easily demonstrate that Mo was by far the most dominant reliever the league has ever seen.

Let's take a look at ERA+. ERA+ presents a pitcher's earned run average as a percent of league average. So an ERA+ of 102 means that a pitcher's ERA was two percent better than the league average. The chart above shows the ERA+ for the top-25 relievers of all time over the course of their careers (IP >= 1000).

Notice anything? Yes, Mariano Rivera isn't only the owner of the best ERA+ ever for a reliever, but it isn't even close. In fact, his ERA+ of 205 is the best ever by a wide margin for any pitcher that threw more than 1000 innings.

Not enough for you? Ok, let's move on to FIP, K/BB, and WHIP.

Below is a heat map of the same top-25 relievers for their career FIP, K/BB, and WHIP. Dark green is the best in each category, dark red the worst. It's easily apparent to anyone

Even without the saves record, Rivera has shown himself to be the most dominant reliever the league has ever seen. The gap between Rivera and Hoffman gets even bigger when you consider that Rivera spent his career in the homer-friendly Bronx while Hoffman pitched in a pitcher-friendly park. Makes that FIP gap a lot bigger in reality.

J.D. is right that it's difficult to gauge and compare the relative worth of position players and relievers, but when you are the best there ever was in your role it's not a stretch to argue that Mariano was the greatest Yankee of this era.

He was certainly the greatest reliever of any era, saves or no saves.

*It was pointed out in the comments that Billy Wager is absent from this list. That's due to the innings pitched cut-off used of 1000 (Wagner had 903). For the record, Wagner's 187 ERA+ comes the closest to matching Rivera's. Additionally, his FIP (2.73), K/BB (3.99) and WHIP (1.00) over 17 seasons compare very well to Mo's.

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I love what you did here, Bill.

After I noted how difficult it was to compare him across the entire population of players, you go ahead and show how he was the most dominate in his subset by a large large margin. It’s arguable within his subset – elite RP – context matters only marginally because they’ve all been thrust into similar situations.

These numbers are amazing to me.

My only question is, how did you derive the population of top 25 RP of all time?

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by JD Sussman on Sep 20, 2011 10:17 AM EDT reply actions

Thanks, J.D.

The top-25 was simply the top-25 in terms of ERA+. I thought that was the easiest way to get a set of comparables outside of saves. I am sure there might be other ways to do it, but I like looking at league-relative ERA as a baseline to work off of.

Columnist at Beyond the Box Score. Contributor at Amazin' Avenue.

by Bill Petti on Sep 20, 2011 10:46 AM EDT up reply actions

Rivera is simply in a class by himself.

Thanks for pointing out some of the other metrics which demonstrate the magnitude of the career he’s had. I’d also like to point out that he’s crazy when it comes to WPA (+54.5 wins) and shutdowns and meltdowns as well (540 SD vs 112 MD).

Trevor Hoffman had 601 saves, but his career WPA stands at +32.98, second amongst relievers for career numbers. Hoffman had 518 SDs against 138 MDs.

Here are some other notable relievers, for comparison:

Rich Gossage +31.69 WPA, 419 SD, 185 MD
Billy Wagner +28.78 WPA, 389 SD, 100 MD
Joe Nathan +24.46 WPA, 250 SD, 48 MD
Lee Smith +24.36 WPA, 478 SD, 188 MD
Jonathan Papelbon +21.85 WPA, 189 SD, 38 MD

data taken from Fangraphs.com

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by redsoxtalk on Sep 20, 2011 12:58 PM EDT reply actions